Gaslight
by When In Doubt Smile
Summary: In which, Natasha doubts her mind, forgets who she is, and Clint remembers. (Third in "We'll Always Have Budapest" series.)


Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers or Gaslight. Or even a lot of the lines in this.

Please enjoy the story and review!

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IMPORTANT NOTE! For anyone who was reading We'll Always Have Budapest, the story has been deleted and published as one shots. I have a hard time focussing on one story and just didn't have enough time to keep up with the whole story. Each one is titled under the name of the movie as part of a "We'll Always Have Budapest" universe/arch. Thanks for your support.

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Gaslight

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Ten years ago-

Natalia tries not to cry as she leaves her beautiful home in Russian square. The woman masquerading as her aunt has been killed and even though Natalia is trying to be good and not cry, she does because the woman lying dead next to the fireplace was the closest thing she had ever had to family.

* * *

Earlier today-

"I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were dangerous to me, Barton."

"I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were dangerous to her, Bauer."

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Eight months ago-

"Remind me what it is I'm supposed to do again, Clint?"

"Just go and get close to him, Natasha. That's all. You've done it a million times."

"But how do I get close to a man I can't even talk to?"

"Get close to one of his friends."

"Fine. You try it next time if you think it's so easy."

* * *

Seven months ago-

"Gregory proposed."

"What? Natasha you've only known him for a month!"

"I know. He'll be suspicious if I say no. The wedding is set for a week from today."

Two days earlier-

Gregory, a man who is rumored to be one of the friends of Sergis Bauer, whom Natasha has been sent to kill, proposes on a sunny day by a lake. And Natasha, or Paula as he calls her, accepts.

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Three weeks later-

They move into the house Natasha had lived in all those years ago with her "aunt". The fiery redhead pretends that the house and its ghosts don't affect her. Natasha is brave because she is strong. Paula is brave because her new husband makes her so.

All the letter says is "Dear Miss Alquist: I beg of you to see me just once more. I have followed you to London." At least, that's as far as Natasha gets before Gregory yanks the letter out of her hand, claims that it is upsetting her, and decides that he is going to take all her "aunt's" belongings and store them in the attic, so that Natasha does not have to look at them.

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A month later-

Gregory does not let Natasha out of the house, ever.

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A week later-

Gregory gives her a beautiful cameo brooch that once belonged to his mother. When Natasha cannot find it not long after,she begins to wonder. It's the first time Gregory truly looks at her like she may losing her mind.

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Everyday-

"Clint do you remember me losing things often?"

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Two weeks later-

Natasha swears she does not know how that picture ended up behind that statue. She didn't take it. Why would Paula take such a thing? Gregory makes that face again, the one that says that she might be crazy.

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Three months later-

"I'm going to that party with or without you. It's your choice, Gregory."

The party is grand and Natasha enjoys herself immensely, until Clint walks into the room. She avoids shis gaze, but Gregory, always a suspicious and jealous man, wants to know who he is. Natasha lies and say she has no idea.

Gregory's watch goes missing and when he goes through Paula's purse and finds it, though Natasha is certain that she never took it, both Natasha and Paula break down.

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44 minutes and 16 seconds later-

" I've tried so hard to keep it within these walls - in my own house. Now, because you would go out tonight, the whole of Moscow knows it. If I could only get inside that brain of yours and understand what makes you do these crazy, twisted things, Paula."

"Gregory, are you trying to tell me I'm insane?"

"It's what I'm trying not to tell myself."

"But that's what you think, isn't it? That's what you've been hinting and suggesting for months now, ever since...the day I lost your brooch. That's when it all began. No, no, no, it began before that. The first day here when I found that letter."

"What letter, Paula?"

"That one I found among the music from that man..."

"Yes, you're right. That's when it began...I can see you still, standing there and saying, 'Look. Look at this letter.' And staring at nothing."

"What?"

"You had _nothing_ in your hand."

"What?"

"We'll be having visitors, Paula." The visitors are doctors meant to institutionalize her.

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Sometime that night-

When the lights go down and the footsteps start above Natasha's head, she buries her face in her pillow and sobs. She sobs because she is hearing things in the house that was once her home. Sobs because if she loses her mind she will lose Natasha. Sobs because there is nothing she can do to stop it. 20 minutes later when a redhead wipes her eyes, she starts calling herself Paula, just like she had ten years previous before she had found her aunt murdered.

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Everyday after that-

Clint worries. Natasha does not contact him and she does not leave the house. Paula worries. She no longer trusts herself and her husband is not around when the true terrors begin. The cook and the housemaid worry. Their mistress has finally lost all sense. Gregory worries. He searches day and night in the attic, looking for Paula's aunt's jewels in her belongings, but they are no where to be found. But worry does not stop Gregory, he turns on the lights in the attic and continues to search and below him his wife cries as the lights in her room dim and the footsteps above her begin.

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Yesterday-

The strange man that comes to Paula calls himself Clint. He refers to her as Natasha and hugs her and kisses her forehead. Paula does not know him. He tells her a wild tale about her husband being a man called Sergis Bauer. About how he wrote a letter to her aunt. About how her husband murdered her aunt and is trying to drive her crazy. About how he has been tricking her and about how she is not insane. Paula believes him with all her heart.

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8 hours ago-

"See Paula, there was no Clint. Even Elizabeth denies there was a man here."

"I couldn't have dreamed it. Did I dream? Are you telling me that I've dreamed all that happened? Then it's true. My mind is going. It was a dream. Then take me away, I can't fight it anymore. It was a dream."

"I'm sad to see that I can be brushed off as an illusion so quickly, Natasha," Clint says as he enter the room.

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7 hours and 59 minutes ago-

The fight between Clint and Gregory, no, Sergis, awakes something in Paula. A whole different person. Paula finds confidence in her sanity and Natasha becomes herself again.

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When it is all over-

"You may have five minutes with him, Natasha. Shout if you need anything."

Sergis barely breathes as Paula goes and grabs the knife he has hidden in the drawer. She is not strong, she bends to his will and now she will free him. She is standing right next to him, her face blank. She is going to cut him free. He knows she is going to cut him free, she loves him to much to not.

"Cut me free, my Paula, my love. You never heed to see me again. Just cut me free with that knife. Yes, Paula, that knife there. The one in your hand." Sergis coaxes Natasha

The she opens her mouth. "Are you suggesting that this is a knife that I hold in my hand? Have you gone mad, my husband? Or is it I who am mad? Yes, of course, that's it. I AM MAD!" And as Natasha shouts she throws the knife aside.

"I'm always losing things and hiding things and I can never find them. I don't know where I put them. That was a knife, wasn't it? And I have lost it...I must look for it, mustn't I? If I don't find it, you'll put me in the madhouse. Where could it be now? Perhaps it's behind this picture. Yes, it must be here. No, no - where should I look now? Perhaps I put it over here. Yes, I must have done that," as she opens the drawer next to her she spies something that changes everything. The cameo brooch.

"My brooch. The brooch I lost at the very beginning of all this. I found it at last - you see? But it doesn't help you, does it? And I'm trying to help you, aren't I? Trying to help you to escape. How can a mad woman help her husband to escape? Yes, I am mad," Natasha looks terrifying, standing there, tall above a man who has hurt her and taken her mind from her. Her green eyes burn and her face loses its beauty in a look of complete fury. She is the perfect picture of a woman taking back her independence.

"If I were not mad, I could have helped you. Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!"

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Today, just before sunrise-

"This night will be a long night, Clint."

"But it will end, Natsha. It's starting to clear. In the morning when the sun rises, sometimes it's hard to believe there ever was a night. You'll find that, too. Let me I can help. We've gotten through worse. Remember the Orient Express?" Clint is overjoyed when he sees the small smile that is the first sign that his Natasha is coming back to him.

"Thank you, Clint."

As an old woman passes by below, she smiles at the couple standing on the roof of an old Russian home where a woman's story ended in death and where a new love story is just beginning, silhouetted by the moon as if it were gaslight.

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Author's Note: By a raise of hands, how many of you have had your computer delete your story? That's what happened to this specific oneshot, which is one of the reasons it has taken so long to get up. Other than that I don't have any excuses. I I have the rest of the pieces planned out and so hopefully updating will happen more frequently. Once again, sorry for taking so long, but I hope you enjoyed this and that you will review.

Wish on a star tonight,

-When In Doubt, Smile


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